


Harold Calvin: Imagineer

by LawrenceKinden



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Child, Fantasy, Gen, Imagination, Orphan - Freeform, SOLDIER - Freeform, Science Fiction, Sister - Freeform, Spanking, brother, evil nun, gladiator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-03 16:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5297489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LawrenceKinden/pseuds/LawrenceKinden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the amazing and heroic adventures of Harold Calvin, boy wonder. [Story Contains Spanking]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sergeant Steele and the Bugger Invasion

Sergeant Steele, last survivor of the Fearless Falcon Company, perhaps the last survivor on planet Earth, crept carefully around the piled debris of what was once a skyscraper in the most populated city in the world, now a tumbled wreck.

On the far side, crouched in a shadowed corner, chittering away to itself, was one of them, the disgusting, slug-like buggers, the aliens who had destroyed his home in a matter of weeks. The Army had been no match for the slimy buggers and their ray gun technology. Though he and his men had fought valiantly, as had the whole planet, the buggers had won.

But Harry knew their weakness. Though their bodies were covered in a chitinous exoskeleton and their six limbs were equipped with diamond hard stingers and the slime that coated their bodies was like acid, there was an orifice on the side of their heads, much like an ear. A well placed shot would take out one of the buggers in an instant.

He didn't have enough bullets for all of them, but he was damn sure going to take out as many as he could before they got him. He'd go to his silk-cocoon death knowing he'd been a thorn in the side of the allies.

The lone bugger never saw him coming. Harry took careful aim and...

The report of the handgun echoed through the ruins of the building. His aim was true. The monster squealed like a little girl.

"Mom!!"

Hannah clapped a hand over her ear, eyes screwed shut with the pain of a pressurized stream of water in the ear.

"Mom! He did it again!"

Sergeant Steele sprinted for cover while the disgusting creature squealed and squirmed in its death throes. He knew others were coming. For all their disgustingness, the buggers were unfalteringly loyal. If he was lucky, he'd get the chance to take out a few more before retreating to his makeshift lair in the abandoned subway tunnels.

From a safe place, he lingered, ready to bolt if the buggers came en mass. But he was in luck, just one of the slimy bug creatures came slithering into the ruins to watch the shrill death of its fellow. Sergeant Steele took aim and fired. But his aim was off and he caught the creature on the back of the head rather than the ear.

Dinah squeaked and spun around searching for her little brother. She heard his telltale giggle and stamped her foot. "Mom! Harold's being a pest!"

Sergeant Steele sped through the clogged alleys and rubble-strewn ruins. He was nearly to the stairwell that would take him underground and to safety but came up short, his breath catching and his heart hammering.

The biggest bugger he'd ever seen blocked the stairwell, peering into it like it might find him. It was the queen mother of the buggers, the biggest, baddest of them all. This was it, this was his chance to take them out for good. Before they'd all been killed, the scientists had guessed that the buggers were like a hive mind and that to destroy the queen was to destroy them all.

Fortunately, he had prepared for just such an occasion.

Hidden under a pile of bricks that looked like they'd just fallen that way was a thermal detonator, the most destructive grenade the army had created in their attempt to beat back the buggers. It would be enough, it had to be enough. If he could finish them here, perhaps other survivors could rebuild.

Grenade in hand, he approached as quietly as he could. He knew the blast would likely take him too, but it would be worth it. With a shout of triumph, he initiated the thermal detonator and slammed it into the grotesque bugger queen's back.

Cynthia Calvin, mother of four and avid gardener, gasped and stood from her gardening box in the backyard. The icy cold during the height of summer might have been nice had it not been all at once, had she had some warning. Instead, the shock of it brought tears to her eyes. She spun around to find Harold Calvin, her youngest and only boy, with a wide if sheepish grin.

"Um... hi, mom."

Sergeant Steele was thrown back by the blast. He coughed and groaned but was still breathing. It was a miracle. He squinted through the dust and haze. All around him he could hear the squealing pain of buggers. All over the city he knew they were squirming and writhing and shuddering. He had won. He had done it.

But then, through the smoke, loomed the queen mother of the buggers.

"Damn," he muttered.

"Harold Jonathan Calvin!"

He tried to get up, to get away, but the queen mother's stare was paralyzing. She advanced upon him slowly her death glare pinning him to the spot. Sergeant Steele knew he was doomed. All he could do was stare his death in her multifaceted eyes and wait.

Cynthia snagged her son by the wrist before he could dash away. She knelt upon the lawn and dragged him over her knee and spanked him quickly, three hard smacks to impress upon him that she was serious.

"Ha! That's what you get!" Hannah shouted.

Cynthia looked up at her daughters who'd gathered to watch. "You three, go on."

"Mom! Harold shot me with his stupid water gun again," Dinah complained.

"He got me in the ear!" Hannah squealed.

Rachel, who hadn't been shot at all, just grinned widely.

"I'm dealing with it," Cynthia said. "Now, go on."

"But they won't play with me," Harold said, blinking away the alien ravaged dystopia of his mindscape as he mother hauled him inside and up the stairs.

Cynthia sat her son on his bed and knelt in front of him. She sighed. Four children, only the youngest of whom was a boy, was handful enough, but that the boy was such a rambunctious, energetic, mischievous boy was even more so.

"Perhaps you should try playing a game that doesn't including shooting water at them."

Harold sighed and flopped back on his bed. "How long do I have to stay here?"

"Half an hour. Then we'll talk about it."

Sergeant Steele winced as his cell door slammed shut. He hadn't known the buggers took prisoners. He'd only ever seen their victims eaten alive, struggling inside the buggers' stomachs as they were slowly digested. Did that mean there were more intelligent aliens controlling the buggers or that they were more intelligent than he'd thought? Not that it mattered. The queen mother bugger had survived his thermal detonator. He was captured and if he wasn't digested to death, he'd starve instead.

The window was open, letting in the summer breeze and playful giggles of his sisters. Harold stood at the window and looked at the backyard where his mother gardened and his sisters cavorted. He smiled. In his underwear drawer was a sack of water balloons his mother hadn't found. It was his emergency reserve stash.

Sergeant Steele couldn't believe his luck. The cell the buggers had put him in was actually a supply closet in an old army surplus store. And it was filled with thermal detonators. With the shout of a man reborn, he kicked down the door and enacted explosive revenge.

"Harold!"

His sisters fled futilely from his expertly lobbed water balloons. They squealed and shouted and cried as they were soaked from above. But it wasn't long before his mother burst into his room, soaked through.

"That's it!"

Harold was yanked from the alien ravaged dystopia of his mindscape. His mother sat on his bed and dragged him over her knee. She pulled his shorts and underwear to his knees and spanked his bare bottom while he kicked and cried and shouted. She spanked him so that he sobbed uncontrollably. She spanked him so that he was sure he'd never sit again.

"You're grounded until dinner," his mother said while he howled with pain. Her callous, uncaring tone convinced him he was the saddest, most unfairly treated boy in the whole town. He cried as loudly as he could, even after the sting of the spanking faded a few minutes later. When he became bored of that, his attention drifted back to...

Sergeant Steele stood among the guts and ichor of the broken, burned buggers, triumphant. It had cost him. He'd endured pain unlike any other. But he'd won. The mother queen bugger (not to mention several other buggers) was blasted to bits. But this was just one city. The scientists had thought there were more mother queens buggers, perhaps one per city.

He knew their weakness. He knew how to beat them. He knew what he had to do.


	2. The Betrayal of Maximus Maul

Maximus Maul, greatest pit fighter in all the Empire, flexed his massive muscles and glared at the putrid beast on the other side of the sandy arena. It was a massive mutant, a cross between some kind of giant pig and a forest floor. Or, perhaps the giant pig had rolled around in the mud and then a leaf pile. Either way it was just another beast that would fall before the might and prowess of Maximus Maul.

"Um, Harold, what are you doing with that rake?'

From the tunnel to the gladiator's ready room, Maximus Maul's timid sister cowered. By law, they were both gladiators, both slaves, but Mary Maul wasn't much of a fighter. She was the reason he had become such a fersome warrior. When they'd been torn form their home, their family slaughtered, and sold to the fighter pits, Maximus Maul had sworn to protect his sister. It was too bad she'd turned out to be so... annoying.

"Really Harold, dad said..."

Maximus banished his siser's timid objections. The Father Emperor was the reason he and his sister had been pressed into pit fighter slavery to begin with. He didn't want to hear from her about what the Father Emperor had said. He didn't want to be reminded of how she had begun to curry favor with the Father Emperor on the back of Maximus' success as a gladiator.

The pig beast roared, banishing his frustration with his sister, his memories of home, and thought in general. The roar split the air and rang his ears. Maximus raised his favored weapon, a great, long-handled sledge that none but he could lift. He charged the beast while shouting his own battle cry, lost amid the roar of the crowd. That combined roar faded from hearing as his body surged with sudden energy and his vision narrowed to the beast before him.

Maximus swung his mighty maul, catching the putrid beast in the jaw even as it lunged to snap him in half with its teeth. He felt the deep, wet crack of the beasts breaking jaw shiver up the maul to his hands, arms, shoulders. The shock of it numbed his hands and he nearly lost his grip. He let of the force of the blow push him aside, let his maul fall to the sand. As the creature staggered to the side, he hefted the weapon and let it come at him.

"Harold! I'm telling dad!"

Somwhere in the distance, he heard his sister shriek unintelligibly.

The leaf pile with teeth glared at him. Bloody drool dripped from its lips as it leapt at him, bringing its massive, leaf-dappled claws to bear. Maximus leapt to the side and away, swinging his massive maul back, up and finally down upon the beast's back, scattering leaves, muck, and blood.

The beast stumbled and wheezed.

The crowed roared.

Maximus Maul took a moment to breathe. He planted his maul upon the sun-baked sand and rested upon it, gazing around at the crowd of the arena, the great Collessium where only the most favored, the most applauded pit fighters performed for crowds, slaughtering the monsters of the wild for sport. It was filled with the blood thirsty citizenry of the decrepit Empire.

While the crowd cheered, Maximus looked at the leaf-covered beast. It had fallen to its knees and was breathing hard. For all that Maximus had come to revel in the thrill of combat, he was not a cruel man. He did not want the beast to suffer needlessly. So, she hefted his maul to his shoulder and prepared to deliver the final blow when suddenly the weapon was plucked from his grip.

Maximus spun about, prepared to fight, but there stood the Father Emperor, clad in his black battle armor that stood like a shadow in the sun. He held Maximus' prized weapon like it was a toy, and glared down at him with amusement and disdain.

"Harold, what are you doing?"

Behind the Father Emperor stood his sister, looking smug. He knew she'd been spending more and more time with the Father Emperor, trading in on his fame to cozy up to the despot. What lies had she told him? After all he'd done to protect her, had she betrayed him?

"I am Maximus Maul, the greatest pit fighter in the world!"

The Father Emperor chuckled coldly.

"It's Maximus today, is it? Well, Maximus, your sister just spent nearly an hour raking the back yard and you took about fifteen seconds to scatter her hard work."

Harold blinked at his father, banishing the emperor of his mindscape. His father held a rake in both hands and looked disapproving. Harold looked around at the grassy backyard, strewn with last autumn's leaves, and at the woods that bordered it. He wondered if he could make a break for it and escape what came next.

"Are you going to spank him, daddy?" Mary had her hands on her hips, her expression serious.

Harold felt his skin tighten. He'd gone days without a spanking.

"Hmm... No, I don't think so."

Maximus looked up at the black-armored tyrant, defying the man to do his worst. Part of him wanted to attack the Father Emperor, conquerer of nations, ruler of the known world, destroyer of families. But he knew he could not succeed. He knew the Father Emperor's eldritch power and freakish strength would overpower even Maximus Maul.

"There will be no execution. I have something far more unpleasant in mind."

Maximus didn't know what his traitorous sister had said to the Father Emperor to make that despot think Maximus Maul planned treason. He didn't know what lies she had spun, what stories she'd concoted, but he did know when he was hauled off by ten... no fifteen of the Father Emperor's personal guard, her satisfied cackle broke his heart.

"Harold, I want you to rake the yard."

"But it's almost lunch time!" Harold wailed, the crushing injustice bringing tears to his eyes.

"You can have lunch when you're done."

"But I'll starve!"

"You won't starve."

Harold began to sniffle, but his father ignored him.

Mary made a disappointed sound. "I thought you were going to spank him."

"Settle down, young lady. If we spanked your little brother for every act of mischief, we'd never stop." He handed Harold the rake who took it reluctantly, like a prisoner succumbing to the iron schackles that would bind him for life.

The arhythmic crack of pick and hammer echoed up and down the salt mine shaft. Maximus Maul, his wrists and ankles shackled, lifted the pick in his massive hands and set to work, breaking salt form the rock. It was back-breaking, lung-cloging work. But in the back of his mind, while his body worked tirelessly, automatically, his mind was racing. He would escape this life of slavery, he would confront the Father Emperor, he would confront his traitorous sister, and he would...

"Harold!"

The boy snapped from his reverie and looked toward the house.

"Come get some lunch." His father stood at the edge of the porch.

Harold looked around at the yard. He'd done a pretty good job.

His stomach growled.

Harold jogged across the yard and into the house, leaving the rake leaning against the house at the back door.

"Come on Marcus Arelius, your mother's making tunafish salad."

"It's Maximus, dad. Maximus Maul."

"Oh. Right. I'll try to remember."

All in all, Harold decided, he was glad his dad was nicer than the Father Emperor. Even so...

Maximus Maul knew they'd left his signature weapon at the entrance to the salt mine, guarded by the warden of this hellhole. They'd put it nearby to taunt him. If he could only get his hands on it...


	3. Hangman Harry vs. the Cruel Schoolmistress

"One and one is two. Two and two is four. Four and four is eight..."

The childish chorus droned through the schoolroom like a bunch of boring robots, fifteen orphan boys dutifully reciting their mathematics under the watchful eye of Madam Pinhurst, schoolmistress.

"Eight and eight is sixteen. Sixteen and sixteen is thirty two. Thirty two and thirty two is sixty four..."

Harold groaned loudly. "This is boring. Let's say like..."

Aliens burst through the quaint school house windows. Glass shattered like shrapnel. The school kids screamed with terror, fleeing before the slimy, bug-like, no... the lobster-armored, no... the warrior-hunters of planet Xygin with their invincible bio-techno armor and super-sharp laser swords and then Sergeant Jonathan Steele of the Fearless—

"No, Harold. We're playing school. Now, it's time for a spelling test."

Dinah, his eldest sister at thirteen, loved school. She loved math and science and reading. She loved to go to the library and study even when she didn't have to. And she loved to play school.

Harold groaned again. "This is dumb. It's summer vacation. Why are we playing school during summer vacation?"

"You asked if you could play with us," Dinah said. "And today we're playing school."

"Yeah, you have to play right or you can't play with us," said Mary. Mary was the youngest of his sisters, though still a couple years older than him. She stuck her tongue out at him and he reciprocated.

"Be nice, Harold," said Rachel, the middle of his sisters. She spoke without looking up from her book. "You don't want Ms. Dinah to paddle you in front of the class, do you?"

While his trio of sisters giggled at the notion, Harold pretended to barf.

"That's enough of that, boy," Madam Pinhurst snapped.

Hangman Harry looked up from his diligent study of his spelling words to find the cruel schoolmistress of the Mercy Hand Orphanage glaring down at him.

"Pardon, mistress. I meant no harm, It's just..."

Madam Pinhurst grabbed his ear and hauled him to his feet.

"Threr'll be no daydreaming, lollygagging, or laziness in my schoolroom, little boy."

"Yes, ma'am!" Hangman Harry squeeked, wincing.

"Don't mock me, boy." She spanked him with the ruler she always carried thrust through the sash of her black dress, three sharp cracks that filled the cold, grey schoolroom.

Hangman Harry knew better than to cry out. He suffered in silence and steadfastly rubbed neither his bum nor his ear as Madam Pinhurst released him and went back to her desk at the head of the class. He sat and looked at the list of spelling words.

He knew the words, of course. He was the smartest most talented kid Mercy Hand Orphanage had ever seen, not that Madam Pinhurst would acknowledge it. As the headmistress and head nun of the orphanage, it was her job to mold the young minds of her orphans. Instead, she delighted in tormenting them.

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open, shrieking free of its hinges to fall, shattered, to the floor. In strode a thin man in a belted robe with a rice hat and wooden clogs. He had four arms, all of which were fashioned from the cleverest array of cogs and wheels. Yohsida Yoshi drew his dragon katana and pointed it at at Madam Pinhurst.

"Your days of torturing innocent orphans are at an end, cruel schoolmistress!"

"Harold, no." Dinah insisted. "I'm not cruel. Just because you can't spell 'itch' and 'space' doesn't mean I'm torturing you."

Harold groaned. "Well I know how to spell them now you've told me how. Besides, school is torture. You're playing a torture game!"

Hanna rolled her eyes and Rachel giggled.

"Now sit still and be good. We're going to do addition next."

Hangman Harry froze as Madam Pinhurst fixed him with a glare.

"You little cheat!"

"But I didn't," Hangman Harry squeaked as he was hauled from his seat and to the front of the class, Madam Pinhurst spanking his backside with her ruler all the way, filling the schoolroom with the sound of it. All the boys of the orphanage watched with wide eyes and tight lips. Madam Pinhurst pushed him to the corner.

"Liar, cheater, thief."

Hangman Harry didn't protest, he just tried to cry silently.

"I know you cheated on that exam. Little boys who cheat are little boys who end in a hangman's noose. Watch your step, little boy.

Hangman Harry sniffled quietly.

"Why is Harold in the corner?"

Dinah sighed. "He wouldn't behave, mom. He kept going on about aliens and evil nuns and such. I asked him to sit and do addition and he acted like I was torturing him."

"Ah. So that's what all the wailing was about?"

Dinah nodded.

"So you put him in the corner?"

Dinah shook her head. "No, he did that himself. Said he was being punished by evil torture nuns."

Cynthia laughed. "Well, I brought lemonade for you and your students. Even the naughty ones being punished by evil nuns." The girls partook eagerly, but Harold remained in the corner. Cynthia looked at him and concern creased her brow.

"Harold, come on and have some lemonade."

Harold turned and blinked at her in that way he had, like the world was only just coming into focus. Then he smiled at her, banishing her concern.

"They call me Hangman Harry, mom."

"Who does?"

"The other boys at the orphanage. The evil nun thinks I'm a cheater, and she says that cheaters and thieves end in a hangman's noose." Harold grabbed an imaginary rope and tugged it tight above his head, pulling a grotesque face, eyes bugged, tongue out.

"Oh, for goodness sake, I never said that." Dinah said.

Cynthia smiled at her oldest. "It's all right. Harold's imagination is running away with him." She looked back at Harold. "Where'd you hear a phrase like 'hangman's noose' anyway?"

Harold shrugged. "My brain told me."

Hangman Harry blinked up from the Kessel Salt Mine slave narrative Madam Pinhurst had assigned them to study. Sometimes Hangman Harry saw things. Sometimes he saw a woman with the muzzle, ears, and tail of a cat meditating on a mountain top. Sometime he saw a holy man standing before a host of monsters, preaching the sermon of good works. And sometimes he saw a changeling boy

Cunning Coyote was a brown-skinned boy dressed in leathers who crept into the classroom on cat-quiet feet, sliding up to the schoolmistress' desk. Hangman Harry tried not to stare. Madam Pinhurst spanked him when he stared at people she couldn't see. He glanced around the room though, to check if anyone else had seen the changeling boy sneak in.

None had.

Cunning Coyote withdrew a small leaf-wrapped package and emptied the powder within into Madam Pinhurst's morning tea. Then the boy looked at him and winked.

Hangman Harry gasped.

For all that he'd seen a myriad of fantastic characters who no one else could see, never had any of those characters ever seen him, and never had they had any actual effect on the real world.

Madam Pinhurst looked up from her desk to glare at him.

Cunning Coyote, changeling child, smiled before his form wavered and he turned into a mouse and scurried away. Hangman Harry's heart began to hammer as Madam Pinhurst took a deep drink of her tea.

Dinah smiled as Harold handed her another cup of lemonade. She took a drink and almost immediately spat it out while Harold burst into uncontrollable giggles.

"Harold! That was salt, not sugar!"

Harold ran from the makeshift classroom. He'd nearly made it before Dinah caught him. The big sister grabbed her hellion of a brother and spanked him, hard, three times. The triple-crack shocked her, slamming her heart against her chest. She'd never hit anyone before and though technically her parents had put her in charge of her little sibs, she was shocked at what she'd done.

Madam Pinhurst fell ill for three days.

And on the fourth day, when she'd recovered enough to sit up and speak with authority, she blamed Hangman Harry for the illness. She accused him of poisioning her tea. There were three other nuns at the Mercy Hand Orphanage: Sisters Dinah, Rachel, and Mary. They sat at the table in the refectory and listened to Madam Pinhurst's accusations, nodding like sycophants. Hangman Harry stood before them, hunched and frightened while his fellows, the boys of Mercy Hand Orphanage, sat behind him and watched.

"It wasn't me," Hangman Harry said. "It was a changeling boy, Cunning Coyote. He sneaked into the schoolroom, doused the tea, and escaped as a mouse."

Madam Pinhurst straightned and sneered.

Hangman Harry immediately knew he'd said the wrong thing. He should have known better. Madam Pinhurst thought him possessed when he spoke of his visions.

"A changeling?" demanded Sister Dinah.

"Was it a coyote or a mouse?" demanded Sister Rachel.

"Is the boy mad?" demanded Sister Mary.

"No," said Madam Pinhurst, "not mad, but he allows the Devil in him." Then she smiled slowly. "We'll have to beat it out of him."

The stripped him bare, bent him over the head table, and caned him, each in turn all while the boys of Mercy Hand watched. Hangman Harry couldn't suffer in silence, he howled and bawled and gasped.

Harold cavorted in the backyard, running and shouting, jumping and spinning, shouting about evil nuns.

"He's crazy," said Mary

"Nah, he's just..." Rachel struggled to find the world

"He's Harold," Dinah said.

The sisters shrugged and went back to playing school.

Hangman Harry slipped from bed, dressed in silence, and crept from Mercy Hand Orphanage on stealthy feet. The chances of survival for a boy on the street were slim, but his chances at Mercy Hand were none.


End file.
